Drunkard's Progress: Narratives of Addiction, Despair, and Recovery (Paperback)

by John W. Crowley (Editor) "Timothy Shay Arthur (1809-85) was an incredibly prolific writer of stories in the sentimental vein..." (more)
Key Phrases: temperance narratives, reformed inebriate, reformed drunkards, New York, Captain Carson, Squire Jones (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Crowley's editing is discreet and his introductions to the individual selections provide brief yet instructive contextual backgrounds... He has done a valuable service in 'recovering' these narrative of despair and hope and placing them at the disposal of a wide range of possible readers and researchers." -- Ian Baird, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History

Product Description

"Twelve-step" recovery programs for a wide variety of addictive behaviors have become tremendously popular in the 1990s. According to John W. Crowley, the origin of these movements -- including Alcoholics Anonymous -- lies in the Washingtonian Temperance Society, founded in Baltimore in the 1840s. In lectures, pamphlets, and books (most notably John B. Gough's Autobiography, published in 1845), recovering "drunkards" described their enslavement to and liberation from alcohol. Though widely circulated in their time, these influential temperance narratives have been largely forgotten.

In Drunkard's Progress, Crowley presents a collection of revealing excerpts from these texts along with his own introductions. The tales, including "The Experience Meeting," from T. S. Arthur's Six Nights with the Washingtonians (1842), and the autobiographical Narrative of Charles T. Woodman, A Reformed Inebriate (1843), still speak with suprising force to the miseries of drunkenness and the joys of deliverance. Contemporary readers familiar with twelve-step programs, Crowley notes, will feel a shock of recognition as they relate to the experience, strength, and hope of these old-time -- but nonetheless timely -- narratives of addiction, despair, and recovery.

"I arose, reached the door in safety, and, passing the entry, entered my own room and closed the door after me. To my amazement the chairs were engaged in chasing the tables round the room; to my eye the bed appeared to be stationary and neutral, and I resolved to make it my ally; I thought it would be safest to run, as by that means I should reach it sooner, but in the attempt I found myself instantly prostrate on the floor... How long I slept I know not; but when I awoke I was still on the floor, and alone... I have since been through all the heights, and depths, and labyrinths of misery; but never, no never, have I felt again the unutterable agony of that moment. I wept, I groaned, I actually tore my hair; I did every thing but the one thing that could have saved me." -- from Confessions of a Female Inebriate, excerpted in Drunkard's Progress

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (January 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801860075
• ISBN-13: 978-0801860072
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,755,579 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A unique collection of "drunk narratives" f, June 3, 2000

By	Holly Hassel (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Drunkard's Progress: Narratives of Addiction, Despair, and Recovery (Hardcover)

Crowley is not really the author of this book but the editor. _Drunkard's Progress_ is Crowley's collection of a genre of prose, the "confessions" of the alcoholic. Crowley's contextualizing essay does a nice job connecting the told-story, or the ritual of recounting alcoholic experiences with the first groups, like the Washington group, who employed this as a tactic toward achieving sobriety. Crowley also makes connections with the similar ritual within modern day recovery groups. As a contemporary literature scholar, I found Crowley's previous text, _The White Logic: Alcohol and Gender in Modernist Fiction_ to be more interesting, largely becuase it offers a literary interpretation and criticism of a variety of novels rather than being a collection of brief narratives like this book. However, for the reader and scholar interested in the foundation of the drunk-narrative-as-ritual-therapy model, Crowley's collection will be interesting reading.